“55. Write a letter to my father.“

On January 15, 2008, I mailed my letter to my father. From the time I decided to write the letter up until this morning at 10:30am, I have been a nervous wreck. Not knowing whether I would even get a response from him. If I did get a response, would it be positive or negative. You see, I’ve never met my father. The only thing I’ve known about him was his name and he was a police officer in DC. Other than that, I’ve been pretty much in the dark.

My mother raised me by herself and made sure that I had everything I could ever want. I grew up with my grandfather constantly around until his death in 1997. I also have 2 outstanding and very supportive godfathers who have been the male influences in my life. However, the questions have always been tucked in the back of my head, whether I want to admit it or not. Whenever my mother would bring up my father, I always avoided discussing it and usually found a way to change the subject. The day before I wrote the letter to my father, I wrote one to my mother asking her to (finally) tell me about what happened with my father.

I know, why now? I guess with all this soul searching I’ve been doing over the last month or so, it was just time for me to get some answers and face the truth. I look just like my mom, but recently, she’s been telling people that I look just like my father. That made me curious. And thanks to the wonders of Google, I was able to look him up and find a picture (yeah, there’s no denying me) and his address. I didn’t know what, if anything, he knew about me…and I didn’t know if I was going to bring up bad memories. (I know I should’ve been thinking a little more positively, but you see so many stories about people trying to find their birth fathers and the end up being crushed…I guess I was just preparing for the worst.)

What a surprise it was to get back from my weekend living the Glamorous Life to find an email from him with “Dad here!” in the subject line. Words cannot even describe what I was feeling at that moment. I wanted to throw up, pee my pants, cry and call a couple of people all at the same time. So many thoughts were running through my head (and still are!)

This is just the beginning…I don’t know what I was hoping would come out of sending him a letter, but this might be the beginning of a new relationship….

And to think, I thought 2007 was a year full of milestones…